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Pianist Charles Fierro has championed the music of Edward MacDowell throughout his career. He will perform MacDowell's Five Virtuoso Etudes in addition to other masterpieces in the Faculty Artists Series at California State University Northridge on October 19th, 2002 at 8:00 p.m. |
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For one who has lived with the music of Edward MacDowell for twenty-five years, it is tempting to write of him as though he were in the pantheon of established composers. This is particularly so when we realize that during his lifetime (1860-1908), even in his middle thirties, he was widely regarded as "the great American composer." One critic even esteemed his piano sonatas as "by far the best since Beethoven". Virtually everything he wrote was published and his music appeared in the repertoires of international artists. As a pianist, he was compared to Paderewski when he performed his concertos with major orchestras in the U.S. and Europe. Moreover, he served as Professor of Music at Columbia University in New York, authored Critical and Historical Essays (a compilation of his university lectures) and was the subject of countless magazine articles. MacDowell's compositional career spanned barely two decades (1881-1901). During those years, a multitude of responsibilities left him little time to compose, yet his output comprises over 60 works, including two orchestra suites, four symphonic poems, numerous songs and works for vocal ensemble. For the piano there are two concertos, four large sonatas, two suites and eighteen collections of tone poems, some, like the Twelve Virtuoso Etudes, quite substantial. To remember MacDowell solely as the composer of "To a Wild Rose" is as unfair as remembering Beethoven solely for "Fur Elise" or Brahms only for his "Lullaby". (Nineteenth-century composers relied heavily for their living on royalties from the sales of sheet music. The sheer quantity of short pieces and picturesque titles may say more about society and the publishing business than about aesthetic values.) Although MacDowell utilized Native American themes for one of his major works, the Indian Suite for orchestra, he was most definitely not a nationalistic composer. He had sharp criticism for what he regarded as Dvorak's facile adoption of American folk material. In his later years, he even refused to allow his music to be performed on all-American programs. He thought of himself as an internationalist and wanted his works to stand comparison with the best European music. A hiker and photographer, MacDowell responded sensitively to nature, the land and the sea in all their colors and moods. His piano pieces, "From a Wandering Iceberg" and "In Deep Woods" are splendid examples. Like Schumann, he was enormously well read and always found inspiration in literature; naturally, his music has a programmatic bearing. Mottos from Carolingian romance, Arthurian legend and Nordic sagas appear among his titles, along with quotations from major British, German and American poets, yet he insisted that his music be understood as a commentary on the narrative or pictorial content, rather than as a description of it. The roots of his style are firmly planted in the traditions of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Liszt; melody and character are paramount. Some aspects of his later music, however, strike us as forward-looking and at least as modern as early Debussy. Highly effective writing for the piano in both his dramatic and mystical works includes layered sonorities, pedal effects and a very personal use of harmony which makes his music immediately identifiable. Several of his most famous collections, such as the Woodland Sketches, Sea Pieces, Fireside Tales and New England Idylls contain pieces for intermediate level pianists. When Western music took a radical shift of direction in the early twentieth century, Romantic ideals were suddenly devalued, so it is not surprising that much nineteenth-century music, including MacDowell's, was placed "on hold" to await rediscovery at a later time. In the 1940s, MacDowell's widow, Marian, predicted that his time would come again. Today, the re-awakening of interest in nineteenth-century music and the renewal of Romantic values in contemporary music provide a perfect opportunity to test the validity of her foresight. Indeed, the music of his contemporaries, Mahler and Elgar, has enjoyed significant revival in recent years. MacDowell's rightful place in music history is up to the judgment of the listening public, of course, but this judgment cannot be made unless the music is played. |
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